


Save The World, He Said (but I saved you instead)

by Inkonstantin



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Creepy Fluff, Gen, M/M, Mysticism, Possibly Unrequited Love, Psychological Horror, Swirly Mysticism, Their Love Is So, i kinda love that that's a tag, possibly creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkonstantin/pseuds/Inkonstantin
Summary: It had been 3 years, 147 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes, and 37 seconds since the Twilight had fallen.Arthur and Alfred are the only two humans still alive - if one could even consider Arthur to be human, after quite literally sacrificing his soul and most of his capacity for emotion in order to try to save the world.He'd failed to save the world. In the end, he only managed to safe one Alfred Jones, an idiotic knight who wouldn't leave him alone no matter how he tried to push him away.In the end, Arthur perhaps finally discovered the only thing that really matters.
Relationships: America/England (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Save The World, He Said (but I saved you instead)

**Author's Note:**

> apparently i wrote this story a year or more ago - and then completely forgot about it. just stumbled upon it languishing in a folder on my laptop while going through stuff i haven't looked at in ages. apparently i wrote this fic for the otp prompt "A and B get stuck on a train which is haunted" - but there is no train in this fic, much less a haunted one, and instead it turned into some kind of fantasy au? idfk, i only really gave this a quick once-over, just enough to decide that it wasn't complete shit and that there was therefore no reason _not_ to post it. i mean, it's already written and has been so for a long time, i no longer have any kind of investment in it at all, but if even one single person gets any kind of enjoyment out of this at all, then that's worth the few minutes it's taking copy and paste some stuff, type up an author note, add a few tags and click the "post" button, right? 
> 
> in any case, the document i stumbled upon on my laptop happened to include the following author note that i apparently typed up when i wrote this story (man this is like digging up and opening one of those buried time-capsule things, so weird):   
> ... 
> 
> When I asked my sister what genre she would characterize this as, her answer was “swirly mysticism,” which I rather liked. 
> 
> Though other suggestions she made were “angst” and “psychological horror”…
> 
> …I didn’t think it was horror at all myself, but I’ve been told before that my writing tends to come off as a lot creepier than I realize... 
> 
> So I guess that’s your warning: This chapter might be kind of creepy. Possibly. But I don’t know by how much. 
> 
> So read on… if you still feel like it…

**Save The World, He Said**  
**(but I saved you instead)**

It had been 3 years, 147 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes, and 37 seconds since the Twilight had fallen.

Arthur knew this because his pocketwatch that had been counting down the days to the end hadn’t stopped counting when the world had ended, smothered by the Twilight.

It should’ve stopped counting. 

Instead, it kept counting down, into the negatives, farther and farther away from zero. 

_\- 003y 147d 16h 48m 42s_

He still remembered the apprehension, the creeping terror that had racked him all the way down to his bones as he’d watched time count down towards zero—towards the end of the world of night and day, towards the beginning of the Twilight. 

He remembered the chasm of terror that had ripped through his chest as the clock had counted down, flashing _000y 000d 00h 00m 05s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 04s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 03s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 02s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 01s._

He’d been watching the pocketwatch since it had been given to him when he was thirteen and his grandfather, the village’s mage before him, had died, handed the duty off to him. 

When he’d received the Pocketwatch of the End at the age of twelve, it had read _012y 344d 07h 22m 03s._

“You must not tell anyone about the Pocketwatch,” his grandfather had said, gasping out wizened breaths, green eyes somehow clear despite the illness that had sunken his cheeks, shriveled his body, wrinkled skin hanging from brittle bones. 

His beard was long and white, and moved with his jaw as he spoke, lips and tongue fighting desperately against the terrible shakes that were consuming his entire body. “You must not tell anyone that the End is coming,” he said, breath hot against Arthur’s ear as he’d leaned down to better hear his grandfather’s weak voice. “They can do nothing to prevent it, nothing to prepare for it. The only one who can do that is you, Arthur.”

Arthur had felt the weight of the words like huge blocks of marble dropped onto his shoulders, and had begun shaking as much as the dying man who was desperately clinging to his hand. 

“If they knew,” his grandfather had said, “there would be panic and chaos. Desperate people do terrible things—they kill themselves, they kill each other...” 

“Grandfather,” Arthur had choked out, tears streaming down his face. 

“Do not tell them,” his grandfather repeated, green eyes locking with his own. “Only you… can save them...” 

The light had left those eyes, the man’s body limp, and when Arthur had removed his hand from the grip of his dead grandfather, he found the Pocketwatch tucked heavy and cold against his palm.

With trembling hands, he’d clicked it open, and there the numbers were, counting down. 

_012y 344d 07h 22m 03s._

_012y 344d 07h 22m 02s._

_012y 344d 07h 22m 01s._

_012y 344d 07h 22m 00s._

_012y 344d 07h 21m 49s._

And Arthur had thought, _It’s okay. I have time. I have time to prepare. When the End comes, I will be ready. I will save everyone._

And so he’d thrown himself into his studies, reading all his grandfather’s sorcery books, constantly practicing. He’d been studying his magic his entire life under his grandfather’s tutelage, and he honestly believed that, even alone, he could become powerful enough to save everyone. To save the world.

He’d been so young and naive. 

He was fourteen when he’d learned everything he could from his grandfather’s books, and realized that it would not be enough. The Light Magic his grandfather had practiced could not save them. 

The Pocketwatch had read _010y 081d 03h 57m 17s_ when he’d become so full of rage—at his grandfather, at the world, at himself—that he’d hurled the sorcery books at the walls, screaming, not stopping until the house had burned down in brilliant emerald flames around him, leaving him curled in the ashes with his grandfather’s cloak pulled over him, shaking. 

The villagers had always been wary of him, more wary than they’d ever been of his grandfather, but they’d tolerated him because he was the village’s Mage, and he healed them when they were wounded and comforted them when they were frightened and protected them when they were in danger and blessed them when they died.

After he’d burned down his grandfather’s house, the villagers’ apprehension of him turned to fear and terror, and he could not comfort them when he knew he could not save them.

And so he’d left, and sought to learn everything about Dark Magic that he could. 

He was sixteen when he made his first deal with a demon, and he’d been an idiot. (The Pocketwatch had read _008y 289d 13h 24m 18s_.) The deal had cost him half his soul and one of his eyes, and all he’d gotten out of it was the ability to communicate with souls of the Underworld. 

He’d thought, if he could communicate with the dead, that he could learn from the greatest Dark Mages who had ever existed. 

They were an ornery and conniving lot, and any information he could get from them had to be bartered, and they wanted things like his most treasured memories: his memory of the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, his memory of the time he’d laughed the hardest, his memory of the first time he’d fallen in love, his earliest happy memory, his memory of the time he’d felt most at peace with himself.

He supposed those weren’t things you were supposed to barter away, but he didn’t miss them after they were gone, like he’d figured he wouldn’t—you can’t miss something that you don’t remember you had. They weren’t things he needed.

The Dark Mages’ knowledge, though— _that_ was something he needed. 

But the more he learned about Dark Magic, and the more he learned about the coming of the End, the more Arthur realized that he was powerless to stop it. 

He was nineteen when he made his second deal with a demon, and he was desperate. (The Pocketwatch had read _005y 164d 23h 15m 32s_.) The deal had cost him the second half of his soul and his ability to taste anything but bitterness, and all that he’d gained was the ability to save himself when the world Ended. 

With the demon’s power and the absence of a soul, he would not be affected when the End came and sucked out the souls of all living creatures.

He figured, after the End came, it would be just him, the monsters, and the rats (soulless creatures that they were).

He was twenty-one when the name ‘Arthur Pendragon’ became the most feared in the land, and hours and hours of his time were wasted dealing with all the Dark Mages who came to kill him to prove they were more powerful, and all the Light Mages who came to kill him because they believed he was too powerful. 

(The Pocketwatch had read _004y 005d 14h 38m 44s_ when the first Mage came to challenge him, _002y 113d 18h 06m 45s_ when the last one did; after that, there was no one left who dared try.) 

He was still twenty-one when he relocated to the kingdom’s capital city, because the End was _003y 211d 12h 23m 57s_ away, and the castle was a strategic location, in the center of a metropolis. If he cast the spell he’d been working on correctly, he may be able to save everyone within a certain vicinity. 

(He didn’t want to live alone with the monsters and the rats.)

The Princess had offered him to pay him for his services in keeping the Kingdom safe, and he’d accepted. There was no reason not to. He didn’t need the money—nobody as powerful as he was could have any use for something so menial—but it sanctioned his presence in the city, and it prevented the Kingdom from being attacked. 

After he allied himself with the Princess, there were no more wars. Nobody dared attack a Kingdom that had Arthur Pendragon at its beck and call. 

He was twenty-three when he was reunited with Alfred Jones. (The pocket watch read _002y 134d 15h 06m 28s_ ). He didn’t remember Alfred Jones; it might as well have been their first meeting. But he believed Alfred when he said that they grew up together, because as soon as Alfred had seen his face, his blue eyes had gone wide, his mouth dropping open, and the name “Arthur Kirkland?” had tripped and stumbled from his lips. 

He hadn’t gone by the name Kirkland since leaving the village he’d grown up in, nine years before. He hadn’t expected to see anyone from the small village again, over a hundred miles from the capital city and tucked in a mountain alcove as it was. Nor had he expected anyone who had known him then would recognize him now, so changed was he. 

“So you’re her Highness’s mage guy, huh?” Alfred had said, trying to collect himself, though his grin was in shambles. “What a coincidence! Who could have guessed we’d meet again like this? You her mage, and me her personal Knight!” 

Arthur had stared at him, wondering. He didn’t remember this man at all, this ‘Sir Jones’ who was apparently the Kingdom’s most talented and trusted Knight, having been tasked with the honor of personally protecting the Princess with his life. 

If he didn’t remember him, it either meant that he had made no impression at all, or he had been associated with some of Arthur’s most treasured memories, and all recollection of him had been bartered away. 

He’d said nothing, and Jones had kept glancing at him with slightly flushed cheeks, before glancing away again, laughing nervously and brushing a hand through lion-tawny hair. “Haha! So you really did succeed in becoming a great mage, huh? That’s really cool, man! I’ve always been totally envious, you know—I don’t have a magical bone in my body, haha!” More nervous, almost hysterical laughter, and Jones seemed to be falling apart.

“Yes you do,” Arthur had said, narrowing his eyes. As curious as the man was—and it had been a long time since anything had managed to make Arthur even slightly curious—he loathed it when anyone tried to dupe him. 

Jones had stopped laughing, blinking at him, startled. “What?”

Arthur had gestured towards him, a sneer curling his lip. “Your left femur has faint traces of magic. You broke it once and it was healed with magic, correct?” 

It was a shoddy job—whoever had healed it hadn’t known what they were doing. It might have been healed, and healed correctly, but the magic left behind was far too strong, and Arthur felt a wave of contempt. It would attract the attention of anyone even slightly magically attuned, and could cause interference if anyone tried to heal him with magic again in the future. 

It was a terrible insult for Jones to think he wouldn’t notice it. 

“Oh, yeah!” Jones had said, his eyes widening with recollection, and his laugh stumbled shocked and clumsy from his chest, too sudden and too loud. “You did that, dude!”

It was Arthur’s turn to blink, taken aback, and the sense of confusion and horror that came over him was one he hadn’t felt in years. “I what?”

“You healed my leg,” Jones had said, frank and grinning. “Don’t you remember?” He’d laughed, abashedly, hand at the back of his neck. “I was a total idiot when I was a kid and got bucked off this fuckin’ stallion and the fall totally shattered my leg. I would probably have died if not for you, dude.” 

Jones had been smiling at him, sheepish, embarrassed, grateful, but at Arthur’s blank look uncertainty had entered his gaze. “You don’t remember that?” His voice had been faltering, his body fidgeting under Arthur’s utterly empty stare.

“No,” Arthur had said, because he didn’t remember. 

He supposed he really had once been so inept at magic as to do such a poor job on the bloke’s leg. 

Jones had been staring at him, looking utterly lost. “How could you have forgotten that?” he’d asked, and his voice had been quiet, shaky. He’d laughed again, weakly. “Although I guess you must’ve healed a lot of injuries like that, huh,” he’d said, and his fingers had been caught in hair at the nape of his neck. “But you remember me, right?” A hopeful grin, lighting up his face, his bright gray-blue eyes. “We were like best friends!”

Arthur could only stare at him. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” he’d asked, tone flat, unamused. 

Jones had started shaking his head vehemently, tawny hair like a mane. “No way, man!” he’d said, and his eyes had been wide and fearfully earnest. “I’m completely serious!”

_What a tosser_ , Arthur had thought, his confusion replaced entirely by annoyance. This lowly knight was wasting his time. 

They’d stared at each other, Arthur flatly, blankly, Jones with growing horror, like someone who was falling from a great height.

“…You really don’t remember,” Jones had said finally, staring at him like someone who realized they had already fallen far out of reach, and there was water collecting at the edges of his eyes which he rubbed away with the back of a hand. 

_What a ninny_ , Arthur had thought, feeling nothing but annoyance and contempt. “No.” 

“Seriously?” Jones said, and there was disbelief thick in his voice now, incomprehension in his gaze, the beginnings of suspicion, accusation. “You don’t remember me? Not at all?”

“Not at all,” Arthur had said firmly.

Jones had started looking desperate. “Not even the time we—”

Arthur was quite annoyed, by that point, and considered turning the sod into a dog to match his pathetic whimpering. But the Princess was still there, watching them with interest, and so Arthur restrained himself. 

“I don’t remember anything from my childhood,” he’d rudely interrupted instead, hoping to shut the knight up and bring the conversation to an end. He had far more important things to do. 

He had, at that point, still been working on the spell to save as many people as possible when the Twilight came (the pocket watch read _002y 134d 14h 42m 54s_ ). 

Jones had shut up, his jaw dropping, eyes widening, shrinking back, like a dog that had just been kicked. “What?” he’d stammered, looking at Arthur, aghast. “ _Anything?_ ” His voice had cracked.

Arthur had frowned. Why wouldn’t this man let it go already? So what if they actually had known each other once? If they had, it had to have been at least nine years before, and Arthur had been a completely different person, then. 

Who’d he’d been didn’t matter. His past didn’t matter. All that mattered was preparing for the End. (The pocket watch read _002y 134d 14h 40m 32s_.)

Arthur wanted to leave, but the Princess was still there, watching, and this Jones fellow didn’t look like he was going to let this go, staring at him with those gray-blue whimpering dog eyes. 

Fine. Whatever. It wasn’t like talking about the past hurt—he didn’t feel anything about it, aside from a frustration about how much time he’d wasted when he could have been working on saving the world, how much time he was wasting now. 

Arthur had sighed in frustration and contempt, glancing once at the Princess before looking back at Jones, meeting his gaze and holding it unflinchingly, like he’d stared down so many mages, both light and dark, who had tried vainly to defeat him. 

As if they could. As if anyone of them could. 

He was the only one with the power to save even a fraction of the world.

(The pocket watch read _002y 134d 14h 38m 49s_.)

“I remember my grandfather dying,” Arthur stated, flatly, without inflection. “I remember studying his magic books. I remember my house burning down. I remember the villagers hating me. I remember leaving.” There was no emotion in his voice, and the shrug of his shoulders was elegant; he didn’t feel anything. “I don’t remember anything more than that.”

Jones had stared at him, wide-eyed, horrified, unbreathing, looking rather like magic apprentices had looked when they’d seen him destroy their masters with a wave of his hand, in that brief moment they’d lived before he’d destroyed them, too. 

“Dude,” Jones had breathed finally, looking at him with those wide gray-blue eyes, trembling like a cowering dog. He could barely speak for choking. “What the hell happened to you?” 

Arthur just looked at him, as if he couldn’t believe how stupid he was (he couldn’t). 

But Jones had that desperate look of someone who would not ever let an issue go without getting an answer, and so Arthur, too unimpressed and fed-up to even throw on a cruel smile, handed him his answer, since he was clearly too much of idiot to use what gray matter there was inside his thick skull to figure out the answer for himself:

“I became the most powerful mage in the world.” The declaration was utterly dispassionate, utterly bored, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (it was). 

And there was Jones, looking at him like he’d been kicked in the chest, all the breath expelled from his chest, like the spirit of a demon from a human body in an exorcism. “What?” The word was fainter than the breath of a will-o’-the-wisp.

Now that had amused Arthur—a cruel, sadistic humor, the only kind of amusement he could still feel, the only kind of pleasure aside from pride that hadn’t been bartered away for knowledge and power.

Idly, he wondered what kind of colossal rock the daft twat had been living under. “Her Highness didn’t tell you you’d be meeting the one and only Arthur Pendragon?” he had asked, and his smile had been cold and cruel, but the sheer fact that something had altered his expression to something aside from boredom was almost a novelty. 

The way Jones’ gray-blue eyes had widened to near-circles like a full moon suddenly uncovered by dark shrouds of clouds had made the cruel amusement in Arthur’s chest stretch its atrophied limbs, shake its shaggy hide of fur and howl. 

“Holy hell,” Jones had breathed, and he looked like he’d just stepped onto the site of a massacre, corpses strewn bloodily everywhere, not a single soul left alive, not a single figure left standing except for the reaper, grim and dark, scythe-bearing and skull-faced. “That’s _you?_ ” 

Arthur’s cruel amusement had sunk in its teeth, shaking its head with reckless abandon, and Jones’ expression had paled as if Arthur’s grin was a scene of tearing flesh and splattering blood, a dismembering by monstrous jaws. 

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Arthur had grinned, cruelly delighted, utterly disparaging. “Are you telling me I was such a gormless chuffer when I was younger that you would never have imagined I’d actually make anything of myself?” 

His grin was wide, wide, so wide—why no demon or ghost had ever asked for his sadistic pleasure he didn’t know, because the feeling was truly brilliant; but perhaps they already had enough of it, themselves, and so weren’t in need of his. 

If he hadn’t bartered away his capacity to feel gratitude, he supposed he would have felt grateful that sadistic pleasure had been left to him. As it was, he just felt even more cruelly amused, for it was their loss, not his.

Jones, indeed, was looking at him like the knight himself had personally lost something. “No,” he said quietly in answer. “No, not at all. It’s just…” he had frowned, shaken his head, and when he spoke again his voice had saddened, heavy like leather and armor soaked through, sopping and swollen with water that threatened to start oozing from his eyes. “The rumors I’ve heard are all so terrible, I would never have connected them with you.” 

Arthur’s grin had sharpend further, like a scythe; it had been years since he’d been so amused, the sheer wretchedness of this knight facing the specter of a dead friend resurrected as the dark and undead antithesis of all his glittering honor and shining morals. 

In _002y 134d 14h 31m 13s_ this knight would be dead, dead like everyone else unless Arthur saved them, and his knightly values would not save him or anyone—no, the only thing that could save them was the amoral, malevolent power of Arthur’s Dark Magic. 

And Arthur smiled at him with all that dark, insane power a purple threat behind his teeth. “Well, I assure you that unlike the rumors that surrounded me in my youth—of which I do remember some—whatever rumors you’ve heard about me as Pendragon are all true.”

Jones had started shaking, shaking like a leaf in the maws of the enlargening breeze. “What _happened?_ ” he’d asked, shaking, shaking. “What turned you into…” gray-blue eyes wet like the ocean; brimming, teeming with their wetness, “into this?” A gesture, wild and sweeping, trying in desperate futility to encompass all the horrifying _thisness_ of this horrifying thing in front of him which seemed to be enlargening, enlargening before his eyes. 

Arthur had smiled purplely. “Power, and the pursuit of it.”

“But…” Jones had looked at him, weak and sickened, a kicked dog, beaten and bleeding but still beseeching, as if it believed its pitiableness would evoke enough guilt to win him a digestible morsel, a pat on the head. “Why?” 

Arthur had long ago bartered away his pity and his guilt, and his cruel amusement was distilling. 

(Why had those demons wanted such emotions of human weakness from him? He was so much more powerful without them, without doubt and hesitation. So much the worse for the demons!)

(Each time he exorcised one of them, the furious snarls of betrayal and the delighted laughter warred for control of their grotesque countenances.) 

Arthur was grinning.

“Why?” Jones had begged again, when Arthur still didn’t deign to answer. 

What a foolish question. 

Arthur laughed, starting to feel angry, annoyed. “Why not?” he asked, and his grin felt sticky on his face, like goblin blood. This blighter was wasting Arthur’s precious time. 

(The pocketwatch read _002y 134d 14h 27m 59s_.)

The Princess was still there, watching them, but Arthur didn’t care. Let her witness whatever she wished; it was he who had so graciously offered his services to the Kingdom. Neither she nor anyone could get him to leave if they wanted him gone nor get him to stay if he decided to leave. 

Arthur turned to go. He was done with this. He was no longer amused. 

Behind him Jones seemed to gather himself, voice loud and shaking only slightly as he’d called after him, “That’s not honorable, you know! What you’re doing!” 

Arthur didn’t stop walking. He’d heard far worse; and besides, the opinions of others were far below him, now. They were all going to die, and there was nothing they could do about it.

(The pocketwatch read _002y 134d 14h 27m 01s_.) 

“ _This isn’t what you wanted!_ ” Jones had shouted, and Arthur stopped walking, lest he stagger from the force of his laughter and make such a fool of himself he’d have to kill Jones and the Princess both for having seen it. (Any rumor of the slightest weakness could send mages against him again, wasting his time. He was tired of it, bored, and they were blind, ignorant, ungrateful _fools_.)

“What I wanted?” Arthur asked, dark chuckles bubbling up from his chest like potions in a cauldron meant for murder, turning to look over his shoulder at the indignant knight. 

Petty ligger. 

“Even if you knew me at one point, you never knew what I wanted,” Arthur said, and he smiled larger, sharper, watching the way Jones’s gray-blue eyes widened, the way he stepped back as if he’d been slapped, hard. “And you sure as hell don’t know me now.” 

The Princess’s prized knight, eyes bright and teeth gritted but cowering like a dog.

Arthur laughed again. “And honor? The ones with power have no need for honor.” He grinned, sick and tired of this. He’d kill the bloke with a thought, if it weren’t so utterly beneath him. More trouble than it would be worth.

“I look forward to seeing you around, Sir Jones.,” he said, nothing but contempt and disdain in his voice, his gaze, as he turned and strode from the room, cloak billowing behind him, voice hard and echoing. “And please, do refer to me as Arthur Pendragon. Arthur Kirland may as well be dead. As you must now realize, there quite inarguably isn’t much left of him.” 

A weak laugh came from the knight. “Aww, man. Don’t give me that, Arth.” 

Arthur grit his teeth, stopping at the door to turn, glaring back at him. “ _Arth?_ ” he asked, coldly. 

Jones had smiled at him, weak but disgustingly optimistic, looking at Arthur like he thought he really did know him. “You’re still just as cynical and gloomy as I remember,” Jones had said, with eyes that decided they were looking upon the comfortingly familiar. “You always did take yourself too seriously.” 

Arthur was not amused. He was angry. In _002y 134d 14h 24m 49s_ this man could die and go to hell, for all he cared. 

“Well, I rather find myself at a disadvantage,” he smiled coldly, “seeing as that I remember nothing about you. What was your first name again, Sir Jones?”

The knight, to Arthur’s satisfaction, looked as if he’d just been punched in the gut. “Alfred,” he said, his voice weak, his smile pathetic. “It’s Alfred…” 

Arthur smiled, smiled, smiled, cruel satisfaction and dark, seething anger. “Well, Sir Alfred Jones, I bid you good day,” he said, and nodded, perfectly controlled. He was the most powerful mage in the world. A mere, magicless knight would not ruffle him. “May you do your job and I do mine, and our paths never gratuitously cross.” 

He strode from the room. The great doors banged behind him. 

He was the greatest magician in the world; all around him, constantly, were a myriad of spells he’d cast about himself, which gave him awareness of everything. He almost cursed himself for them, now, for allowing him to hear more of that pillock’s blather.

“What was that about, Sir Alfred?” the Princess had asked, as the echo of the resonating bang from the chambers doors shivered itself towards deathly stillness. 

“He doesn’t mean that…” Jones had reassured her, with a nervous laugh. “Heheh, he always was a real touchy guy.” A pause, then quieter: “You’ll never find anyone who cares more than he does, though, as much as he’s always refused to show it.”

_What a minger_ , Arthur had thought, and with a snort of contempt had magicked himself to his chambers. 

He’d wasted enough time already. 

(The pocketwatch read _002y 134d 14h 25m 25s_.) 

Arthur’s days and nights were spent embroiled in magic, in spells and curses, in the the noxious breath of monsters and demons kept in cages hanging from the ceiling, his chambers filled with enough dark power to spontaneously combust any human being who so much as managed to open the doors.

There were so many advantages to no longer being human.

Arthur did not sleep (magically induced trances were enough, if he did happen to need rest), did not eat or drink (lacking in human soul and even in heart, the organ long ago sacrificed to one of his spells, dark power had been all that sustained his existence as a corporeal entity for years), did not even need to utilize the puppet of flesh that Arthur Kirkland had been born into and grown up in (Arthur Pendragon could assume any form he wished; it was out of mere convenience that he kept this particular human one). 

He rarely left his chambers. When he did, it was only out of need to gather materials or information that could only be obtained from certain locations (in which case he simply teleported, and nobody saw him leave castle at the edge of the city which had once long ago served as the royal family’s capital residence, before it had fallen into disrepair and they’d moved to their current castle built strategically in the center of the city, and which was now utterly unoccupied save for himself and the rats he let rove the wing he was in no need of). 

On rare occasions, only, did he leave to display his might as the Kingdom’s mage. The King, realizing that no other kingdom would dare attack while he had Arthur Pendragon more or less at his disposal, had taken the prudent opportunity to begin conquering neighboring kingdoms. Arthur himself rarely needed to step in—the threat of his presence and the strength of the Kingdom’s knights were usually more than enough to topple any resistance—but did on occasion for the advantages that came with keeping up appearances. 

A wave of his hand, an end to a particularly difficult struggle, just enough survivors let escape to carry with them the news that, yes, the legendary mage Arthur Pendragon really did exist, they had seen him with their own eyes. 

(“If he’s really as powerful as you say,” their skeptical listeners would say, “then how was it you managed to escape?” And, trembling, shaking violently, the exhausted and blood-stained survivors would murmur, “He let us go, he _let_ us, I saw his eyes, that horrible _smile_ , he _let us go_ so others would know: he exists!”) 

It was on one such occasion, Arthur called forth to put an end to a particularly bloody skirmish, that he once again found himself in the company of Sir Alfred Jones. 

(The pocketwatch read _001y 303d 02h 03m 09s_.) 

Of course, Jones had been exhausted, both him and his sword covered in blood, and on the verge of collapse. 

“I thought you were the Princess’s personal Knight,” Arthur had, for some inexplicable reason, seen fit to comment as Jones and lurched rather unsteadily past him, looking pale and disoriented (blood loss, judging by the wound in his side). “Whatever are you doing away from her Highness’s side in the middle of a battle?” 

It was meant to be biting and ironic, but all Jones had had the mental capacity for was apparently the question, “Did we win?” 

And Arthur could only look at him in complete disbelief and indignation, answering automatically, “Well of _course_ we bloody well won! _I’m_ here, aren’t I?” 

And for some reason Jones had smiled rather dopily. And then passed out, the oaf. 

Arthur did not know what possessed him to catch Jones with magic so he did not hit the ground, and then levitate him over to the infirmary. All he could say for his pride, at the time, was that he did not bend so low as to treat Jones’ injuries himself. 

Equally inconceivable was why, a week later when Alfred came knocking on his door and, upon not being answered, proceeded to try to force his way into the castle, Arthur did not simply let him get himself incinerated by the myriad protection spells, but had even gone to the effort to save the foolish Knight from them. 

(The pocketwatch read _001y 296d 07h 12m 47s_.) 

And equally inconceivable was why, when Jones grinned at him and offered to take him out to coffee (“Uh, tea,” Jones amended quickly, smiling bashfully, “you always preferred tea. Tea and scones, right?”) Arthur sighed and relented. 

(The pocketwatch read _001y 296d 06h 55m 29s_.) 

It was because he knew Jones wouldn’t take No for an answer, he told himself, and it was less trouble to go along with it. 

(Not at all because he’d noticed the way Jones had looked him, a look that made him recall, vaguely, that one of the sets of memories he’d sacrificed had been the memories of his first love, memories sacrificed so long ago he’d almost forgotten about the deal entirely, forgotten entirely that a “first love” had been something he’d apparently at one time once had. What had he sacrificed those memories for, again? Probably something stupid and useless, from what he could recall of his earliest deals. He didn’t know what he was doing at the time.)

(A shame. Memories and emotions of love were highly valued in the demonic realm—if he still had those memories now, he was sure he could barter them away for something truly useful and invaluable.) 

It was curiosity, he realized, that kept him there, drinking his black tea (one of the only things he could still taste, unmistakably bitter as it was) and eating his scone (it taste liked dirt, as did most things; one of the reasons he’d given up eating entirely), while Jones drank coffee infused with milk and sugar, ate a slice of a rather poisonous-looking cake, and waved his arms around enthusiastically, all the while chatting happily, excitably, amiably, bashfully. 

It was curiosity that kept him sitting there in the crowded cafe while Jones “caught him up” on his life, as if Arthur would actually care. 

(Apparently Jones had left their village soon after Arthur had, joining the Knights Corps. and beginning his training, quickly becoming the star pupil and, conquering many trials to test his mettle, had advanced through the ranks to become the Princess’s personal Knight, a position reserved for the best, the ‘Chosen,’ the ‘Hero.’ The oracles had apparently said so.) 

(Oracles didn’t know anything, if they didn’t even know the world was ending in less than two years.)

It was all dreadfully boring, dreadfully delusional, but Arthur listened, found himself wasting his time there, time he could have spent working on his spells (spells he knew would _never_ be _enough_ —), and he didn’t even check his pocketwatch, heavy and cold around his neck, against his chest. 

Arthur listened, wondering why the bloody hell he was putting up with listening to this drivel. (No answer was forthcoming.) And yet he still didn’t leave. 

And when Jones finally ran out of story to tell and looked at him, diffident, worrying at his lip, gray-blue eyes scared, uncertain, hopeful, and asked, “So, uh. Arth. What—” biting his lip, likely biting back the question, “What happened to you?” Instead, when he finally managed to get the words out, what he asked was, “What have you been doing these past nine years?” 

There was no way to answer a question like that. Arthur thought about laughing, but it seemed like too much effort. Nothing about Jones was worth that expenditure of energy. Not even to see the satisfying expressions of alarm and horror that would no doubt do Arthur the favor of gracing the Knight’s face. 

Instead Arthur stirred his black tea boredly with his spoon, took another bitter sip, set it down, looked at the Knight, and asked, “Who was Arthtur Kirkland to you, Sir Jones?” 

(He was only there because he was curious, after all.) 

And Jones had opened his mouth, closed it, looked at him with hurting gray-blue eyes, looked away, looked down at his coffee, frowned down at the drink, bitten his lip, sighed, slumped his shoulders, smiled slightly, wistfully, sadly. 

Arthur was getting tired of this. 

“Whatever,” he said, finishing off his last sip of tea and pushing away the rest of his scone, half uneaten, starting to rise. “I don’t really care.” 

“He was—you were—my best friend,” Jones blurted quickly, and when Arthur deigned to look over at him, clearly bored, Jones’ cheeks were reddened and he couldn’t seem to meet Arthur’s gaze, his hands clenched his coffee mug. “And I—” he broke himself off.

“You what,” Arthur said, feeling tired, so incredibly tired. 

Jones’ hands clenched tighter around the mug, knuckles whitening. “We were best friends,” he said; “we grew up together, we played together, we dreamed together, we did everything together—and then your grandfather died, and you grew distant and started working on your magic nonstop and you were irritable all the time but you wouldn’t tell me why and then you left after telling me only that you couldn’t tell me why and you’d probably never be back and you didn’t listen when I said I wanted to go with you and we were best friends but you just _left_ and I—” 

Jones choked on his words, hiding his face behind his hands. “I _missed you_ , you—you—you _dumbass_. I missed you.” 

Arthur regarded him apathetically, unmoved. “I hardly need to tell you that I don’t remember any of that.” 

“ _I know_ ,” Jones choked, looking at him through his fingers, and even with his face obscured behind his hands it was easy to tell he was crying. “But how—how could you _forget?_ ” 

Arthur just shrugged. What could he say? _Oh, I bartered away most of my memories to demons and ghosts for more power_? If he explained that much, he’d have to explain what he needed all the power for, and he couldn’t tell anyone, much less this high-minded Knight, that the world would end in less than two years if Arthur didn’t—couldn’t—stop it. And he didn’t believe he could, at this point—at best he could save a city, just a few thousand people. (Better than nothing, better than—better than anyone else could do—but still—it would be Chaos—)

And besides, this Knight did not deserve any explanations from him, former best friend or no. 

“Maybe you weren’t as important to me as I was to you,” Arthur said coolly, rising to his feet and flipping up the collar of his cloak. “Did you ever think of that?” 

Jones was shaking. “That’s not it,” he said, fiercely. “I _know_ that’s not it. You—you’re different now, something happened to you that changed you—something _happened_ —”

“Like you could understand anything,” Arthur snorted. He was tired, so very tired. When was the last time he’d actually slept? (Sleep, he didn’t need it, not anymore—) when was the last time he’d rested, in any way at all? 

(The pocketwatch read _001y 296d 04h 17m 13s_.) 

“If I’m so changed,” Arthur said, already striding away, and the only reason the other customers of the cafe didn’t react to his harsh voice or menacing presence was because he had spells keeping him invisible and inaudible to everyone save Jones, “then maybe you should leave me well enough alone.” 

He left the cafe, letting the door slam behind him. To everyone but the Knight, it was the result of nothing but a stray gust of wind. Only Jones had heard his politely cruel dismissal. 

Perhaps it had been too polite, had not been cruel enough, because Jones hadn’t left him alone after that. Had adamantly refused to. 

It was like everywhere he went, everywhere he tried to go, tried to hide, there was Sir Alfred Jones—knocking insistently on the doors Arthur cursed and bolted, fighting in the battles Arthur obligingly ended, sitting at the strategy meetings Arthur obligingly attended, insisting on taking Arthur out to tea— 

(“It’s on me,” Jones would grin, waving down the waiter or waitress—as if Arthur ever needed to pay for anything anyway.) 

It wasn’t much, not really. 

The battlefields were the same scenes of death and gore that Arthur had seen thousands of times, and Jones was exhausting, fighting his enemies so passionately—as if it actually meant something; as if it meant the world _(the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down)_. 

(Jones would thank him for his help, and Arthur turn and walk away, not saying anything.)

The strategy meetings were dull, utterly useless, total wastes of time, and Alfred’s earnest, foolish, straightforward suggestions displayed a blind optimism that bordered heavily on absolute stupidity _(the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down)_. 

(Jones would call him out and ask his opinion, and Arthur make a vague gesture, not saying anything.)

Jones would come knocking, knocking, knocking, without stop until Arthur acknowledged him, but Arthur couldn’t let Jones into his magic-seeped castle, so he had to step outside, and then there was Alfred offering all sorts of places they could go _(the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down)_.

But Arthur had been everywhere, seen everything, knew everything _(the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down)_ and tea was the only offer he was willing to accept. 

The tea was bitter, the scones tasteless, no matter how many glittering sugar crystals were embedded in the dough, and the conversation was lacking (Jones would talk about his day, his week, their childhood and past hijinks, ask Arthur questions, and Arthur would sip his tea, regard him sullenly and not say anything.) 

(Arthur found himself scraping the sugar crystals off his scones and dumping them in Jones’ coffee—the sweetness was completely lost on him, anyway, and the face Jones made when his coffee was too bitter was beastly to have to look at.)

It was odd, really—so terribly odd, to be treated like a human being. To be part of a human conversation. To hear about human lives, human hopes, human dreams. To hear about a young boy named Arthur Kirkland who seemed to have spent a great deal of his short youth trying to keep a young boy named Alfred Jones from doing anything too fatally stupid. 

The young Kirkland had been a stupid, optimistic, arrogant fool, believing he could always save everyone—that he could save the young Alfred Jones no matter what trouble he got into, that he could save the villagers no matter how sick they got, that he could save the world (no matter that it was going to end). 

And now here was an older Alfred Jones, treating the terrible and nigh all-powerful Arthur Pendragon like an old buddy, talking about his plans for the future—a future that would never come to pass _(the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down)_. 

“Why do you insist on taking up my time?” Arthur had demanded of him once, on one of the rare occasions he spoke without significant prompting. “Don’t you have other people to bother? A princess to protect?” 

“Dude,” Jones had said, something oddly soft in his voice, something sad in his smile and his eyes, “you really haven’t changed, y’know? If I’m not the one who bothers you and forces you outta all your gloomy thoughts from time to time, then who’s going to?” 

“So you insist on punishing yourself with my unpleasant company?” Arthur had prodded, glaring, glowering, frowning (he was tired, so incredibly tired, and the numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down and down as he found himself caring less and less). 

“Unpleasant?” Jones had asked, as if the word in connection with Arthur and his company had never in any way occurred to him. “You?” He’d even laughed. “No way! Your company isn’t unpleasant at all!” 

Apparently Jones had decided that that between the intangible specter of the Arthur Kirkland of his memories and the corporeal demon of Arthur Pendragon right in front of him, the childhood specter had won out. How utterly quaint of him.

“I could kill you with a snap of my fingers,” Arthur had said, without anger, or bitterness, or arrogance, or any emotion at all. It was a simple fact. 

The world was going to end in less than a year, and he could kill Jones with a snap of his fingers. 

And Jones had just grinned at him. “Dude, if you were gonna kill me, you woulda done it a long time ago.” 

And Arthur had picked at his tasteless scone, and figured that that was probably true. Why hadn’t he? 

He didn’t know. He didn’t particularly care. The scone was tasteless. The tea was bitter. He couldn’t taste anything else. He couldn’t feel positive emotions. He had next to no memories of his childhood. He had no soul and no heartbeat. He was nothing but walking Power, Dark Magic with a consciousness animating an empty-chested corpse that wasn’t allowed to grow cold. 

He doubted he could die now, even if he wanted to. They could stab him through the chest, burn him, hang him—well, no, they couldn’t. There was no way they could do even that. But even if they did, it wouldn’t do anything. 

He wasn’t human. He was Arthur Pendragon. He was the Dark Mage who was going to save the World. That was his only purpose. The only purpose he’d ever had.

He didn’t remember why he wanted to save the world.

He didn’t remember why he was supposed to save the world. 

(This world wasn’t worth the saving.)

The numbers on the pocketwatch kept counting down, but sometimes, now, he forgot to check. 

Why should he try to save the World? Why should he try to save humans? All they’d ever done was try to kill him, try to stop him from saving them. Ungrateful sods. Why should he do anything for them? 

He drank his bitter tea, listened to Jones’ animated speaking, and thought that he hated the World. Hated humans. All they held for him was an insipidly disgusting unpleasantness. 

No, he couldn’t even muster up that much passion or anger—he simply didn’t care about the World or humans at all. Pathetic, all of them—both the living and the ghosts. 

At least demons _knew_ they were corrupt. 

Arthur had finished his tea and stood up, had looked at Jones’ surprised face and said, “Let’s go somewhere.” 

Jones had lit up. “Wow, really?! Okay! Let’s do it! Where do you want to go?” 

There was a feeling in Arthur’s chest, he was realizing, that Jones seemed to be able to stir. It wasn’t pleasant, necessarily, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and it was something more than nothing. 

It was an unnamed emotion; he’d given up Love, Happiness, Joy, Excitement, Fondness, Contentment, Amiability, Sadness, Grief, Misery, Sympathy, Empathy, and most other identifiable emotions. All that was left was the dark emotions like Anger and Bitterness (the ones that fed into Dark Magic like fuel into fire), and whatever else was there that had not and could not be named. 

This feeling, whatever it was, had survived because it had no name, could not be identified and so could not be culled from him, so he saw no reason to try to put a word to it now. 

He simply didn’t mind Jones’ company; that was all. 

They took a couple horses and rode out into the country. Forests, fields, rivers, and no animals save snakes (all the others fled from Arthur’s power, the birds all gone silent and even the largest and most ferocious of non-reptilian predators gone into hiding).

Jones, oblivious, chattered happily, excitedly, amiably, and Arthur listened absently, looking at the lush landscape and thinking that it was all quite dreadfully ugly. Why had he ever thought all this was worth saving? 

The snakes watched him pass, shifting their heads side to side almost respectfully. 

Maybe, after the End, there would be more than just the demons, himself, and the rats. 

That was good. The snakes would keep the rats in check, at least. 

Idly, Arthur checked the pocketwatch for the first time in days, if not weeks. 

The pocketwatch read _000y 084d 16h 42m 36s_.

Back in his magic-soaked chambers, there was a spell that could, possibly, save one city. There was about a sixty percent chance it would work.

_Ah_ , Arthur thought, looking up at the cloud-streaked sky, _I’ve really gone and wasted my life, haven’t I._

Beside him, Sir Alfred Jones was still chatting jubilantly, chuckling as he recalled a childhood game of hide-and-go-seek-tag in which the young Kirkland had crept up on him and scared him shitless. 

“I hope you had an extra pair of trousers handy,” Arthur commented dryly, simply to distantly observe the way the unnamed feeling stirred in his chest as Jones spluttered, his face reddening, and protested, “I didn’t _actually_ shit my pants! It was just an expression!” 

The pocketwatch read _000y 084d 16h 40m 11s_ , and Arthur found himself frowning at it slightly, something nameless twisting unpleasantly in his chest. What was this new feeling, now? 

“Is something the matter?” Jones had asked, watching him with concerned eyes. (Of all the times for him to decide not to be oblivious.) 

“It’s fine,” Arthur had said, and tucked the pocketwatch away. “It’s just getting late. We should probably head back. Unless you feel like riding in the dark.” 

And of course what Jones did was to grin and say, “I know a great hill for stargazing! Whaddya say?” 

Like so many other recent instances with Jones, Arthur could not think of a single reason to tell him No. 

For some reason he started checking the pocketwatch more often after that, though, and he couldn’t stop frowning at it. Something was strange. Some feeling in his chest. 

He knew for certain he didn’t care if the World ended, didn’t care if all humanity was wiped out. So what was wrong, then? What was this sense of dread? 

The World would end. He didn’t care. He would still be here. It didn’t matter. If anything, once the End came, the world consumed by a malevolent Darkness, he would be stronger than ever. Strong enough to do anything, aside from banish the Darkness or turn back time. But anything else. Almost anything. 

So what was this growing sense of unease? 

When Jones wasn’t bothering him—taking him to tea shops, accompanying him on rides to the country that started culminating in horseback races that Arthur always won unless he decided to let Jones win, convincing him to attend Knight tournaments that Jones always won, fairly and virtuously on the merit of his skills alone—Arthur was sitting cross-legged on his floor and staring broodingly at the large, intricate, palely-glowing rune he’d drawn on the floor in powdered dragon scales and human bones while in the cages hanging above him monsters laughed like drains. 

That spell was the best he could do, even with all his power. A sixty percent chance he could save a city. 

It was when he glanced at the pocketwatch and saw the numbers _000y 006d 23h 59m 59s_ that the panic hit him. It left him paralyzed. 

He stared unblinkingly at the rune for hours, and he didn’t think his eyes had ever been open so wide. 

Jones’ insistent knocking remained distant and ignored. 

A sixty percent chance he could save a city. A few thousand people. A sixty percent chance. A city of gits he didn’t give a whit about. 

If he decreased that number from a few thousand to one, there was a hundred percent chance it could work. A hundred percent chance he could save one person. 

He could save one person, one person for certain. One person he wouldn’t mind having around. One person whose absence would actually niggle at him. 

If he lost Jones, there would be no Grief, no Sadness, but he got the sense that it would get to him nonetheless, annoying like a hangnail. 

The next time Arthur looked at the pocketwatch, it read _000y 001d 06h 24m 27s_. He didn’t know what happened. He’d had no awareness of the passage of the past few days. He recalled only vaguely hearing Jones knock several times, recalled only vaguely making the natural decision to ignore him. 

_000y 001d 06h 23m 16s_. What had happened? 

If he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d fallen asleep. 

Above him, the monsters were cackling, chortling, hopping around in their cages excitedly. 

He thought about killing them. Decided it wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time. 

His spell required last minute preparations. The blood he sprinkled over the rune had to be fresh. The phoenix ash and the werewolf fur collected at midnight on the full moon had to be combined with lilies of the valley just dusted by the healing faeries that gathered by the protector spirits of waterfalls. 

Dealing with healing faeries; that was annoying. They didn’t like him very much. 

Jones was knocking again. That was annoying, too. He sounded worried, desperate. Too bad for him. He had an entire day left to agitate himself about something so trifling. Let him indulge himself. 

The animals had finally sensed what was arriving. Distantly through the castle walls he could hear the horses screaming, the cocks crowing at the tops of their lungs, the dogs barking wildly. In the other wing of the castle, the rats scurried about excitedly, gleefully gnashing their teeth.

By the time the pocketwatch read _000y 000d 01h 30m 58s_ Arthur was fully prepared. 

A sixty percent chance he could save a city. A one-hundred percent chance he could save a single person.

And yet he still felt a chasm of terror rip through his chest as the clock had counted down, flashing _000y 000d 00h 00m 05s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 04s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 03s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 02s, 000y 000d 00h 00m 01s—_

And then the End was descending upon the world, like a tidal wave of Darkness from above. The timing of his spell had to be perfect. 

Ah, Terror. It had been so long since he’d felt that emotion; he’d utterly forgotten what it felt like.

It hadn’t been a difficult decision, whether to save one person or to try to save a city—it hadn’t been panicked, split-second decision. He’d decided long before. 

Sir Alfred Jones would have tried to save as many people as possible. Maybe Arthur Kirkland would have, too. 

Arthur Pendragon was not Sir Alfred Jones, nor was he the young Arthur Kirkland. He was the most powerful mage in the entirety of a world in which the only thing he cared a whit about was a foolish Knight. 

But Sir Alfred Jones was not Arthur Pendragon—he would not be fine living in a world of demons and monsters, all the humans save him and a Dark Mage dead and gone, their bodies wiped from existence and their souls left to wander in abject fright, blind and terrorized, easy prey for the demons to feast themselves upon. 

That was fine. Arthur was counting on Jones’ blindly foolish optimism and determination to retain in him the will to live, on the false hope that he could, by getting to and defeating the Demon King, save the world from the Twilight and return everything to the way things were before. 

It wasn’t possible, of course. It didn’t matter. Jones just needed to believe it was. 

When Jones, having blacked out from the force of Dark Magic that had saturated him to preserve him through the Twilight’s Fall, had come to consciousness in the twilit world of monsters, his confusion quickly turning to horror, Arthur had put a hand on his shoulder, squeezed slightly, looked the Knight in the eyes and held his gaze. 

“Why me?” Jones had asked, weakly. Tears in his bluish gray eyes, nearly leached of all color in the Twilight. 

(The pocketwatch held cold in Arthur’s other hand read _\- 000y 000d 003h 13m 39s_.)

“Because you’re the Chosen Hero, Alfred Jones,” Arthur told him. “See that triangle on the back of your hand? That’s the symbol of the Tri-Force. The Goddess protected you because you’re the only one with the power to save the world from the Twilight.” 

Alfred had looked at the back of his hand, seen the pale gold triangle there, still glowing faintly. 

It may have not actually been from the Goddess, but it was a mark of power nonetheless; a magical protection rune that strengthened him, kept him from disintegrating.

Jones had clenched his hand into a determined fist. “You’re here, too,” he observed. Not accusing. Grateful. Happy. Slightly questioning. 

“I just barely managed to save myself,” Arthur told him. “Even with all the power I have… I’d read the legend of the Fall of the Twilight, but I had no idea it would happen so soon… and the legend telling of a Chosen Hero…” he’d even smiled, as difficult as it was to twist the expression into something that looked soft and relieved rather than like a supercilious smirk. “I’m so glad it’s you, Alfred.”

And Jones, the foolish prat, had straightened his shoulders and tightened his jaw, eyes hardening like steel. (And yet a light danced behind them, excited, even despite everything—“I always wanted to be a hero,” Jones had told him, when Arthur had asked disinterestedly one day at the tea shop “So why did you become a knight, anyway?”) 

There was no day, no night, only the eerie gloom of Twilight; Arthur Pendragon was more at home then he’d ever been; Sir Alfred Jones had never been so utterly lost. 

Out of place. Out of his depth. 

A realm without human life, and a realm without light. The sun was red and the air stank of magic and rotting things. 

Sir Alfred Jones had never been so determined. “How do I save the world?”

Arthur told Jones of an enchanted sword concealed deep in a forest temple. By the time they found it (Jones fighting his way through a forest teeming with man-eating plants, blood-sucking bats, gangs of goblins with clubs, spears, bows and arrows), it was, unsurprisingly, overrun by monsters and demons (giant spiders, stone golems, possessed skeletons, poison-breathing basilisks). 

In another temple Arthur had heard of, there was an enchanted shield (fire-breathing salamanders, flaming pterodactyl-like creatures, demons made of magma, inferno-eyed hellhounds). In another a magic crystal (ice-breathing dragons, demonic wolves, abominable snowmen, malevolent fey), which Arthur used to create create enchanted armor. 

Sometimes, when they traveled the open plains and Jones began to grow restless, Arthur would clandestinely call down shadow-beings, puppets of Darkness made incarnate: dark, lanky creatures that lumbered on all fours like spidery gorillas without faces, their heads giant flat masks engraved in runes, the same designs that traced all over their lean bodies in shadowy black and glowing red.

All the monster-fighting had honed Jones’ sword-fighting skills to a razor edge, and with all the enchanted items he was more powerful than ever.

And yet he still managed to get himself killed. 

Jones lay still on the ground, limbs twisted into unnatural angles, his head twisted all the way to the side so his cheek was lying on the dirt, his mouth open and dribbling blood into the dark puddle that had already formed around him, his eyes dull, clouded, staring into nothing. His bloody sword lay several feet away, knocked far from his hand. 

As far as dragons went, it hadn’t even been a particularly large one that had killed him. Jones had defeated larger and more dangerous—it had been a stupid mistake that had gotten him killed. He’d forgotten to keep on eye out for the tail.

Arthur sighed, crouching down next to the corpse and brushing a bloodied lock of hair from Jones’ mouth. 

“How many times is this now?” Arthur muttered to himself, his hand starting to glow a deep purple as he he placed it on Jones’ chest, forcing the body to mend while simultaneously searching out where Jones’ unconscious soul was lingering nearby and seeing if he could coax it back. 

Bringing back the dead—it had been considered one of the greatest taboos of Black Magic, back before the Twilight. Which was really quite ironic, considering it was actually one of the most restricted and benign uses of Dark Magic. 

Animating corpses and making them do one’s bidding was easy; any Dark Mage could do it. What was much more difficult was actually restoring the soul and life of an individual, a spell which required not just power and will but skillfulness and delicacy, and it was only possible in very specific conditions. 

There had to be a body (if they were incinerated it wouldn’t work), the individual had to be freshly dead (the soul still lingering and the body not yet decomposing), and the individual had to _want_ to keep living (if they had lost the will to live no amount of power in the world could return to them to the realm of the living). 

Arthur had lost count of how many times he’d had to bring Alfred Jones back to life. 

That was okay. There was no limit; as long as Jones had not gotten himself incinerated, and as long as he still possessed the will to live, Arthur could bring him back an infinite number of times. 

In the Twilight, time had no hold, and Jones didn’t even age (and yet that damn pocketwatch kept arbitrarily counting: _\- 003y 147d 16h 48m 42s, - 003y 147d 16h 48m 43s, - 003y 147d 16h 48m 44s…_ ).

Jones never realized he’d actually died, of course. Arthur always told him he’d simply been on the very brink of death, and he had healed him just in time. (If Jones knew Arthur had the power to bring back the dead, it would just be problematic and annoying.) 

Jones had no idea just how much Arthur lied to him. If he knew—if he knew that he was not actually the Chosen Hero, that there actually wasn’t any way to banish the Twilight and go back to the way the world had been before—he would surely lose the will to live. He would die, and there would be no bringing him back. 

Maybe it was cruel, to lead Jones on in this way. But Arthur had spent most of his life sacrificing everything that mattered to him, everything that made him human, in the name of the greater good. 

He was done sacrificing things. This time, he was going to hold onto what mattered to him—he was going to hold onto Alfred Jones for as long as he could. 

Jones would probably find out eventually. Even if time didn’t have a hold, eventually Jones would figure out that he wasn’t getting anywhere, that no matter how many demons and monsters he killed there would still be more. Or maybe he actually would get to the Demon King, and upon killing him and seeing that the world didn’t return to the way it had been, would realize that something was wrong, that he’d been lied to. 

That was okay. When he finally lost Jones, Arthur would just take over the Twilight Realm, declare himself its King and make all the monsters and demons bow before him and do his bidding. 

It wouldn’t hurt, when he lost Jones—whatever he felt for the Knight, he knew he would never be able to feel that. Not with everything he’d given up. 

It would be more boring, without the Knight—without his foolish hope and optimism (he took his beatings with a laugh and nothing daunted him), his high-minded monster-slaying (killing all the demons but the one walking right beside him), his creative attempts at cooking something “actually fucking palatable” (as far as Arthur was concerned it all tasted the same)—but it would not hurt. 

“Arth?” Jones muttered weakly, blinking his eyes and staring blearily up at the mage. His head was in Arthur’s lap, his chest still being warmed with Arthur’s darkly-glowing hand. “What…?”

“Hush,” Arthur told him. “I haven’t finished healing you yet.” 

“Did I…” a weak cough. “Did I kill it…?” 

“I told you not to move,” Arthur berated him. “But yes, the dragon is dead, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Arthur had killed it. Jones didn’t need to know that. 

Jones didn’t need to know that all the monsters he’d toiled and bled to defeat could have been destroyed by Arthur in a heartbeat, a snap of fingers, a murmured word. 

“Ha, it got what was coming to it…” a weak smile. “I won’t…” eyelids lowering with exhaustion. “I won’t let… anything hurt you, Arth…. ‘Promise…” 

“I know,” Arthur said, and brushed a hand through the Knight’s hair, cleaning away the blood. “Just sleep, for now. You need to rest so you can recuperate for the next time you need to fight.” 

“And you’ll…” a weak laugh. “You’ll actually mange to cook something edible, I suppose?” 

“Considering you’ve never considered anything I’ve ever cooked to be edible, I wouldn’t count on it,” Arthur said. “We still have some of that dried and salted Yeti meat, though, and I’m sure I can find some kind of non-poisonous berry nearby. That will have to do until you’re well enough to cook something to your arcane standards.” 

Even as exhausted as he was, Jones still managed to laugh at him and reach up, flicking him lightly in the forehead. “You’re always so touchy about your lack of cooking skills, Arth… how is it you can master magic but not cooking? Cooking should be much easier…” 

“Sod off,” Arthur said, batting his hand away. “It’s not my fault you’re bloody obsessed with your food.” 

“Yeah, yeah, blame it on me…” a weak chuckle. “But, y’know… thanks for…” eyes slipping closed. “saving me again…” 

“Git,” Arthur said. “You’re not the one who should be doing the thanking.” 

Jones slept, a slight smile still lingering on his lips. 

Arthur brushed a streak of blood from the corner of Jones’ mouth. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.” 

But he supposed Jones was too ambitious to ever be satisfied with saving a single person. He wouldn’t be satisfied unless he saved the entire world. 

_I’m really wasting your life, aren’t I_ , Arthur thought, and wet a small cloth with his water flask to begin cleaning the dirt and gore from Jones’ peacefully sleeping face. _But you know…._

(The pocketwatch read _\- 003y 147d 16h 39m 01s, - 003y 147d 16h 39m 02s, - 003y 147d 16h 39m 03s, - 003y 147d 16h 39m 04s, - 003y 147d 16h 39m 05s_ after what was supposed to be the End of the World. And it was still counting.)

_.…You can’t save something that doesn’t need saving, and the world never actually ended._


End file.
